Articles and News

The document is an overhaul and rewrite of RC 1.0.2 (2013) that incorporates current features and functions of MTConnect and OPC UA.

The organization shared the high points of the festive event, met the award winners, and highlighted four members who were just appointed as fellows.

As a complement to HANNOVER MESSE USA in the odd-years, Digital Industry USA will take place from September 10-12, 2019 at the completely renovated Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville, KY.

Lydon brings more than 10 years of writing and editing expertise to Automation.com, plus more than 25 years of experience designing and applying technology in the automation and controls industry. Lydon started his career as a designer of computer-based machine tool controls; in other positions, he applied programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and process control technology. In addition to working at various large companies (e.g., Sundstrand, Johnson Controls, and Wago), Lydon served a two-year stint as part of a five-person task group, where he designed controls, automation systems, and software for chiller and boiler plant optimization. He was also a product manager for a multimillion-dollar controls and automation product line and president of an industrial control software company.

By Robin Whitehead, Boulting Technology This article explains how this is impacting the role of the chief information security officer (CISO) and resulting in the need for end-to-end digitalization.

Tricco was tasked with developing a secure and reliable way to collect data from control systems running at power plants located hundreds of kilometers from the Siemens office. The first phase was to be a pilot—to connect his WinCC OA SCADA system to a Siemens T3000 DCS running at a power plant located about 100 kilometers from Buenos Aires.

CyberX is currently partnering with GE’s global community including GrayMatter, GE’s No. 1 software channel partner and a CRN “IoT Innovator.” GrayMatter’s customers include global organizations implementing a range of Smart Manufacturing, Smart Building, and Smart Water initiatives.

Siemens shares the vision of the OPC Foundation to extend the scope of OPC UA down to field level communication and is looking forward to contributing in standardization activities in the upcoming working groups of the OPC Foundation concerning information models for devices, necessary adaption of OPC UA core standards, application profiles, etc.

The software-based interface can be implemented in controllers offered by any device manufacturer, which makes it an interesting feature to vendors of both master devices and diagnostic tools.

By Chassis Plans High-performance computing is used for solving advanced mathematical calculations and performing data processing through the use of computer modeling, simulation and analysis.

Dzilno has been instrumental in making EtherCAT a fieldbus in chip manufacturing. He is currently Head of Engineering at the ALD Division as Managing Director and Senior Principal Member of Technical Staff at AMAT.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Last year, we explored Dell Technologies quest to accelerate IoT focus to the edge. Through numerous discussions and presentations over the last few years, Dell Technologies has clearly aligned itself to provide industry with solutions that span from computing at the network edge to cloud services.

The initiative plans to address use cases not currently in scope for EtherNet/IP. It could also simplify other use cases, especially in multi-vendor, controller-to-controller environments and for the vertical integration of field devices.

By John Fryer, Stratus Technologies Today’s technological advances put the industrial industry on the edge of a transformative period especially as the number of these IIoT devices continues to rise. Will manufacturer's take the leap?

An IEC systems committee is intended to set high-level interfaces and functional requirements that span multiple work areas across the IEC and its partner, the International Organization of Standardization (ISO), to achieve a coordinated standards development plan.

By Nigel Smith, TM Robotics As we enter the era of Industry 4.0, this article will help dispel some common misconceptions about implementing smart manufacturing.

The original document describes the functionalities as well as extensive state diagrams which add to the understanding, references to the applicable standards, description of error behavior, functional checks, and error codes, and identifies different programming levels.

CC-Link IE TSN was developed to meet future market demands and has added Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) technology,which areadditional standards related to IEEE Ethernet,to integrate Operational Technology (OT) and IT while further strengthening performance and functionality.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com The buzz continues to grow in anticipation of TSN’s turn to mainstream. Yet, the big missing piece that continues to hinder that key evolution is a lack of complete solutions for time management.

IIC-member participants TE Connectivity and SAP SE, with supporting participants OPC Foundation and ifm, developed a solution that enables operators of decades old manufacturing facilities (brown-fields) to connect sensors to an IT system using existing infrastructure without affecting real-time operations.